Report: Amazon could launch Kindle Fire 2 by late July

Amazon will launch the sequel to its Kindle Fire in late July, according to a new report.

The next Kindle Fire is expected to be announced sometime this summer, and Amazon could be eying July 31 as the date to launch the device, according to CNET, which cites "a credible source."

That kind of launch would position the Kindle Fire 2 as an alternative to other e-readers and the iPad during back-to-school shopping, the report notes.

CNET also says the 7-inch-screen Fire will get some hardware upgrades, including a physical volume control and a back-facing camera.

The outlet also says "additional sources" say Amazon plans to handle the Fire with an Apple-like strategy, continually improving the device's hardware and software while maintaining a fixed price point -- it currently goes for $199.

However, the report also notes that Amazon could wait to release at a similar time as the original Fire did last year, which is closer to the holiday shopping season.

The report comes out a day after Gizmodo Australia reported that it expects Google to announce its own 7-inch tablet as early as Wednesday at the company's I/O developers conference, which is set to take place in San Francisco.

That report says Google could also be aiming for a $199 price point and could make the tablet, supposedly called the Nexus 7, the first Android device to run its next operating system, Jelly Bean.

And before the reports of the Nexus 7 came Microsoft's announcement of its own, home-grown Surface tablet that is set to debut later this year. That computer will run iterations of Windows 8.

The big guns in tech -- Amazon, Google and Microsoft -- are all loading up to go after Apple and the iPad.